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Possible Dark Matter Signs At the Core 234

Scientific American has a piece on speculation that dark matter may be behind diffuse radiation in the galactic center. Beginning in 2003, researchers led by Douglas Finkbeiner noticed a curious excess of microwave radiation in the WMAP data, after all known sources of such radiation were accounted for. Data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope resulted in a similar anomaly in gamma rays. "A paper posted to the physics preprint Web site arXiv.org on October 26 and submitted to the Astrophysical Journal points to a possible signature of dark matter in the Milky Way, although the study's authors are careful to keep their observations empirical and table such speculation... In the new paper [the researchers] describe the Fermi gamma-ray haze and make the claim that it confirms the synchrotron origin of the WMAP microwave haze. And as with the microwave haze, the authors argue that the electrons responsible for the gamma-ray haze appear to originate from an unknown astrophysical process. ... 'We are absolutely in the process of exploring the Fermi haze in the context of dark matter physics,' [one of them] says."
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Possible Dark Matter Signs At the Core

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  • by wizardforce ( 1005805 ) on Tuesday November 03, 2009 @08:56PM (#29971826) Journal

    Close. Black holes emit hawking radiation in so far as physics is concerned however, the more massive a black hole is the less bright it is. A black hole with twice the mass of another black hoel will be 1/8th as bright as the smaller black hole. For blackholes largers than the sun, the hawking radiation is so miniscule that the lifetime of the black hole is on the order of 10^60+ years before it "evaporates." Dark matter O.T.O.H. is merely undetectable with current instrumentation outside of indirect gravitational effects.

  • by Korin43 ( 881732 ) on Tuesday November 03, 2009 @10:20PM (#29972558) Homepage
    That's actually not such a bad idea. Maybe we could refocus all of those creation "scientists" on something worthwhile. You know, take their argument and turn it around: "Well, if you proved Colorless Jesus Powder exists then we'd have to believe in God" and then once they do we can switch to "Oh come on, only crazy people didn't believe in Colorless Jesus Powder, to really prove science wrong, you'd need to show exactly how the Jesus Explosion occurred". And so on..
  • by causality ( 777677 ) on Wednesday November 04, 2009 @12:54AM (#29973698)

    So what you're saying is that you don't actually believe the nonsense you're spouting - you're simply trolling? Fun. Does that make you feel like a big man?

    Far from it, good sir. It means I believe it whether or not others need to disagree or even ridicule me for it. I believe that this is one of those polarizing things where you either see it for yourself or you don't and bickering about it is infinitesimally unlikely to change anyone's mind. So I won't. The indifference means I am not bothered when things I believe don't find ready support, for that is a type of insecurity based on bandwagon appeal and I see the error in it. It also means I don't need to think ill of people, not even of those who can't disagree with my viewpoint without also judging me to be inferior in some way or inferring an ulterior motive such as trolling or egotism when my actions are mysterious to them. I am thankful to not carry that burden, for it's a heavy one.

    If you would accept a suggestion from me, never confuse consensus agreement with truth. Not even when you find yourself on the side of the majority consensus.

  • by anarchyboy ( 720565 ) on Wednesday November 04, 2009 @03:29AM (#29974810)
    Not decay annihilation, the WIMP has to be stable and so not decay otherwise we'd have none left by now. What they are hoping to detect is when two WIMPs annihilate and form a ??????? that then decays and emits the radiation they are detecting.
  • Re:One word: (Score:2, Interesting)

    by arminw ( 717974 ) on Wednesday November 04, 2009 @12:24PM (#29979824)

    ....disprove modern physics and prove the electric universe theory...

    Nothing is ever proved or disproved in science, but we can weigh the evidence and see which theory has evidence for or against it. Because we have never discovered a means of generating electromagnetic waves, such as gamma rays, by any other means than movement of electric charges, it is reasonable to assume that there is no other way. To explain the gamma rays and the movement of galaxies by the electric theory, it is unnecessary to come up with complicated fictional constructs such as dark matter and energy as well as black holes.

    To postulate that the majority of all matter in the universe cannot be directly discovered by any instruments it is ridiculous to put it mildly. It's not the math, but it is the data that science is all about. Math must be the servant of science, not its master.

    Generally speaking, a simpler explanation is the better, usually correct one. Scientists know much more about electricity than gravity. Applying what is known about electricity to the data can and does explain that data very well.

Remember, UNIX spelled backwards is XINU. -- Mt.

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